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The Brewers Have Taught Us That the Phillies Must Smoke Cigarettes to Win the World Series
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Watching the Brewers tear through the playoffs and win the World Series in pretty dominant fashion, I couldn’t help but look for lessons to be learned and wonder how they could be applied to the Phillies. A few were obvious.
Small ball is back.
Player development can get you better results than wild free agent spending.
You need to be able to win games in multiple ways.
A good top-down culture pays dividends.
And most importantly, a team that wants to win the World Series must smoke cigarettes together:
Hell yeah. This is what’s up. This is good. For too long, the occasional cigarette has been looked down upon, scorned, viewed as a filthy habit not only bad for one’s own health, but also the health of those nearby. They said it blackens your lungs. That it causes cardiovascular disease. That it turns your fingertips yellow, stinks up your clothes, and makes your house smell uniquely bad, especially when it’s raining outside for some reason.
But the Brewers have proven the naysayers wrong. In the same way that Milwaukee has shown us that OBP can be more important than home runs, they’ve also proven once and for all that cigarettes are, in fact, good. And I’m thrilled about this. I feel validated, too. For a while now, I’ve had a strong feeling that small ball was on its way back. I’ve also known in my heart of hearts that all the drunk cigarettes I’ve enjoyed with my buddies over the last decade were actually good and important. It’s good luck. It’s culture-setting. We will all reap many benefits from this.
All that’s left to do now is hope the Phillies take this lesson to heart. The boys need to start smoking cigarettes immediately. Not just during batting practice, either. They’ve already wasted too much time, there’s too much ground to make up. Bryce Harper must light a Marlboro Light during an ABS challenge. Kyle Schwarber must do post-game interviews with a Newport 100 dangling from the corner of his mouth. Cristopher Sanchez must go 7 scoreless innings with a cigarette safely tucked behind each of his ears, then happily smoke them back-to-back in the dugout after getting pulled.
The Phillies need to make some adjustments. The time is now. I will now proudly become addicted to cigarettes to get the ball rolling.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com